Love Hard (Anything But Mine Book 2)

by Barbara Justice

  Her mind wandered as she drove towards the estate section of Southampton village. She turned onto Ox Pasture Road, then past the gate and into the driveway at Fair Fields, her cousin Jennifer’s home. “This is such a gorgeous home,” she said to herself. “But it isn’t worth what her first husband put her through. I don’t know how she still lives here.”

  Jennifer greeted her at the door with a hug, and ushered her inside. “I’m so happy we can spend time together today. I can’t wait to hear all about the boyfriend.”

  “Me too!” Gina appeared in the foyer in a plush white terry cloth robe, holding two glasses of champagne. She handed one to Meg, and said, “Well? Spill it, cousin.”

  Meg blushed. “You’ll get to meet him tonight.”

  “He’s coming to dinner? That’s awesome!” Jennifer clapped her hands in excitement. “Let’s go downstairs to the spa. My mom is waiting for us down there.”

  As they descended the stairs to the spa area, Meg was greeted by the fragrance of rosemary and eucalyptus. “Mmm…that smells so good. I could really use a massage.”

  “Perfect! Massages are the first order of business, then we’ll have our mani-pedis. We’ll eat lunch while taking turns having Kenny blow out our hair.”

  Jennifer led the group into the massage room, where gentle new-age spa music was playing. “Mom,” she said in a half-whisper. “Meg’s here.”

  Grace LaBella lifted her head and blew Meg a kiss. “Can’t wait to catch up with you in a little bit,” she said, before putting her head back down on the massage table.

  Meg changed into a white cotton robe, and returned to the massage room. As the masseuse applied essential oils to her skin and rubbed the hot stones up and down her back, she felt every ounce of tension seep out of her body. This is the best birthday gift Jen could have given me. I needed this.

  After their massages were finished, the women moved to the next room where two pedicure chairs and two manicure stations were set up. “Meg, why don’t you and my mom get pedicures first, while Gina and I get our manicures. Then we can switch places.”

  “Sounds good,” Meg said. She accepted a tall glass of iced lemon water from Lucy, Jen’s housekeeper and chef. “Thank you,” she said, taking a deep sip. She used the remote control to recline the pedicure chair, and closed her eyes.

  “So…tell me about your boyfriend.”

  Meg opened her eyes, and turned towards her aunt. “He’s a good guy, Aunt Grace. I think you’ll like him when you meet him tonight.”

  “We were all surprised, and happy, when we found out he flew up here to be with you.”

  Meg blushed, as she realized her cousins and aunt were all focused on her. “Me too.” She took another sip of water. “I hope you don’t judge him by the tabloid stories you might have read.”

  Jen shook her head. “No, never. Look at all the made-up things that have been printed about me. They were ruthless with Drew and me after Vince died, saying that we had been having an affair all along, and that we conspired to kill him. It was horrible.”

  “And don’t forget all the ridiculous stories about Drew cheating on you,” Gina added. “Those gossip rags just print whatever will sell papers.”

  “I know. But sometimes there is a grain of truth to them.” Meg bit her lip and stared off into the distance.

  Grace turned to Meg. “Are you talking about that crazy girl?”

  Meg nodded her head. “Yes. The truth is that she is pregnant, but we don’t know yet if the baby is Sky’s. We should have the paternity test back next week.”

  “What will you do if the baby is his?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t even think about that now.” Meg looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “He’s so wrong for me, but he’s also so right for me in so many ways. He treats me like a queen most of the time, and he makes me happier than anyone ever has. And he told me yesterday that he loves me.” She was startled when Grace, Jen and Gina all shrieked.

  “Oh my God, Meg!”

  “He loves you?”

  “That’s awesome!”

  “When did he tell you?”

  “Yesterday, at the cemetery. I still can’t believe he flew up from Nashville just to be with me. And that he didn’t walk away from me when I opened up and told him everything.”

  Grace reached out and took Meg’s hand in hers. “The reason he followed you here, and didn’t walk away from you, is because he loves you. He didn’t just tell you, he showed you.”

  “Come on in,” Victor said, as he opened the door to his house.

  “Thanks.” Sky reached out and shook Victor’s hand. “I’m glad that we have the chance to get acquainted today.”

  “Me too. It’s important to me to get to know the man in my daughter’s life. She doesn’t share much information with me.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Sky replied. “She doesn’t share much with me, either. I still can’t believe that I didn’t know it was her birthday. If my partner Jack and his wife hadn’t called me, I never would have known.”

  Victor sighed. “She wasn’t always like this, you know. Come with me, and let’s talk.”

  Sky followed Victor into the outdated kitchen that had not seen a renovation in over a generation. He noticed an old shoe box and some photo albums on the table. “What’s all this?”

  “Memories,” Victor said. “If I know my daughter, she doesn’t have one photo of our family on display in her house. Or any other reminder of her past, for that matter.”

  Sky ran his hands through his hair as he wracked his brain. “You’re right. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen anything that even hinted that she had a family or loved ones.”

  “Yeah.” Victor gestured towards a chair. “Have a seat. Would you like something to drink? I made a fresh pot of coffee.”

  “Sounds good.”

  After Victor served the coffee, he joined Sky at the table, and opened one of the photo albums. “This is my wife, Meghan, when she was pregnant with Meg.” He flipped through the pages of the album. “And this is the only photo there is of Meghan holding Meg, right before she died.”

  Sky stared at the photo of a smiling woman in a hospital bed holding a newborn. “Meg looks just like her. It must be hard for you to see her at around the same age your wife was when she…”

  Victor interrupted him. “Yes, and no. What hurts me most is seeing Meg torture herself and blame herself for what happened. She didn’t always do that, you know.”

  Sky’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at the revelation. “When did she start blaming herself? And why?”

  Victor sighed, and reached for another photo album. “This is Meg when she was a baby.” He flipped through some pages, to photos of a smiling Meg wearing a paper birthday crown. “This was her 10th birthday. She said she was too old to wear a crown, but I made her wear it anyway. And I’m glad I did, because it was her last birthday party.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “The following year, one of the class bullies told everyone in her school that the reason Meg didn’t have a mother was because she killed her. No one in her class, except for her friend Susan, came to her birthday party that year.”

  Sky pounded his fist on the table. “Damn it! She should have told me that. Didn’t she know how her mom really died?”

  Victor hung his head. “I told her that her mother went to heaven when she was a baby, but never explained that her mother died in childbirth. I thought it was something that could wait until she was older. Turned out I was wrong.” He shook his head and looked at Sky before continuing. “After school that day, she and her friend Susan rode their bicycles to the cemetery, and Meg figured out the truth before I had a chance to tell her. When I got home from work that night, she laced into me. She told me she never wanted to celebrate her birthday again because she killed her mother.”

  “Oh my God.” Sky buried his head in his hands. “That explains a lot. She has so many walls built around her, and so many trust issues.
She shuts people out all the time, and doesn’t let them get close to her. Now I know why.”

  “It looks like you’ve made some progress with breaking down her walls,” Victor said. “She lets so few people in.”

  Sky rolled his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, as he paged through the photo albums, pausing at each picture of Meg as a young girl smiling back at the camera. “It seems like very few people make it past her outer shell.” He paused at a photo of Meg with another teen-aged girl. “Is this her friend Susan? I recognize her.”

  “Yes. She’s been a loyal friend throughout the years, and they’re still friends to this day. Susan also went to college at Vanderbilt. They were roommates there.”

  “Lucky for me. If it wasn’t for Susan bringing her to the concert in Tampa, I never would have met Meg.”

  Victor stared at Sky. “My daughter’s had enough heartache for a lifetime, and I don’t want to see her hurt again. That girl who is pregnant…”

  Sky returned the stare. “I’ll admit to bad judgment in the past, sir. And I’m gonna have to pay the price for it if that child is mine. But I have no intention of ever hurting your daughter. She’s my angel, and I love her.”

  “Speaking of intentions, as a father it’s my duty to ask what yours are towards Meg.” Victor sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “My intentions?” Sky ran his hands through his hair. “We’ve only been together for four months, so it’s a little too soon to say. Like I said, I love her. When I found out she was being evicted because her landlord sold her cottage, I asked her to move in with me, but she hasn’t given me an answer yet. I know better than to press her, though. She’ll make her decision and let me know on her own timetable.”

  “Evicted? Just one more thing she never mentioned.” Victor stood up, retrieved the coffee pot, and refilled their cups. He remained on his feet, sipping his coffee as he leaned against the kitchen counter top.

  As silence descended over the kitchen, Sky reached for more photo albums. He took his time paging through each one, poring over every detail of the first eighteen years of Meg’s life. He paused when he got to a page filled with photos of Meg in a pale green gown with a corsage on her wrist. There was a broad-shouldered teenage boy in a dark suit standing next to her. “Was this her prom?”

  Victor nodded his head. “She went with Jimmy Lenkowski. He was her first real boyfriend.”

  Sky’s heart began to race, and he became overwhelmed by something he had never felt before as he stared at the photo of Meg and her prom date. Anger? No, that’s not it. This is what jealousy feels like. I can’t believe I’m jealous of someone who dated her ten years ago. Jesus, get it together, man. “How did it end between them?”

  “Turn the page.”

  He did as he was told. On the next page, preserved under plastic sheeting, was a letter from Vanderbilt University. He read it before looking up at Victor. “This is the acceptance letter offering her a full scholarship. She told me about this on our first real date.”

  “Meg could have gone to nursing school locally and gotten a job at Southampton Hospital. She worked her butt off, though, and had a straight A average all four years of high school. She was the valedictorian of her high school class,” Victor said with a sigh. “She had scholarship offers from every college she applied to. But the full scholarship to Vanderbilt was her ticket out of town. Once she left, she never really looked back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Later that afternoon, Meg used her key to let herself into her father’s house. “Dad? Sky?” When no one answered, she wandered through the first floor, and into the kitchen. Her heart leapt into her throat when she spied the scrapbooks and boxes of photos on the kitchen table.

  “I haven’t seen these in years,” she said, as she ran a hand over the cover of her high school scrapbook. She opened it, and began paging through the memories. “Dad must have showed these to Sky.”

  She paused at the photo of her with her prom date, and reminisced about the events of the evening. “That was the night we both lost our virginity, in the barn at his family’s potato farm,” she said softly. “I wonder if he is still farming, or if his family sold out to a developer too.”

  When she reached the last page, she smiled, remembering the thrill of receiving the letter from Vanderbilt offering her a full scholarship. “I worked so hard to achieve this. Sky always says he likes to ‘work hard and play hard’, but for me it was only about working hard.” She sighed as she closed the scrapbook.

  She pulled her phone out of her purse, and began to text Sky, but changed her mind before sending the text. “They must be at dad’s garage. I’ll just go over there and surprise them.”

  The garage doors to her father’s mechanic shop were open as Meg pulled into the driveway. She recognized the music blaring from the speakers as “Crush On You” from Bruce Springsteen’s album The River, and she smiled. “Well, if nothing else, at least they have Springsteen in common,” she said aloud.

  Meg stopped in her tracks as she entered the garage. Nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Sky singing, using a wrench in place of a microphone, while her father played air guitar.

  Sky noticed her presence in the garage, and shimmied up to her side. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her in for a dance while continuing to sing along with song.

  Victor grinned as he watched Meg dance with Sky. Who are you, and what have you done with my daughter? He marveled at the way she seemed so spontaneous and free with her boyfriend. She’s always been so guarded and serious. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this side of her. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly. There’s a difference, a lightness, about her. She’s happy, and it’s because of him. He’s the one who makes her happy.

  In that moment, Victor made a vow. No matter what he’s done in the past, it’s the man he is now that matters. He promised me today that he would never do anything to hurt her, at least not intentionally. And I’m going to choose to believe him.

  When the song came to an end, Meg burst into applause. “You guys are awesome! Dad, you really can play that air guitar!”

  “I’m gonna have to get him out on the road with us one day,” Sky teased. “He’s a natural.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m the lucky one who got to hear the famous Sky Johnson cover Springsteen all day,” Victor said. “How was spa day with the girls?”

  “Very relaxing. Just what the doctor ordered.”

  “You look beautiful.” Sky placed an arm around her shoulders. “All ready for dinner tonight?”

  Victor looked at his watch. “I think we should probably head out and start to get ready.”

  Meg agreed. “You know how Jen is a stickler for everyone being on time. Thanks for keeping Sky company today.” She leaned in and kissed her father on the cheek. “See you there.”

  An hour later, the sound of a horn honking outside the farm’s guest house startled Meg. She was swiping mascara onto her lashes, and her hand jerked, causing the mascara to smear all over her eyelid. “Crap!” She looked at her watch, and called out to Sky while she wiped away the stray makeup. “Jen’s here five minutes early. Are you almost ready?”

  “Yup. How do I look?”

  Meg turned around, and her heart fluttered. Sky was dressed in jeans, ostrich cowboy boots, a white oxford shirt, and a blue fleece jacket that matched his eyes. His brown hair was still damp, and the ends curled just at the top of his collar. “Perfect. If my cousin wasn’t honking the horn outside, I’d tear those clothes off of you, and we’d be having dessert first, again.”

  “You look gorgeous.” Sky’s eyes drank in the sight of Meg in jeans, a black cashmere turtleneck, black suede boots, and the heart-shaped angel wing necklace he had given her for her birthday. “I know that turtleneck is supposed to hide your assets but, baby, the way it clings to your curves…”

  Meg’s eyes twinkled as she teased, “Do I need to get an ice pack for you?”

  Sky laug
hed out loud. “I’ll manage to control myself until we get home.”

  “Come on,” Meg said, as opened the front door of the guest house. “Let’s go.”

  Meg was surprised to find Jen behind the wheel of the SUV. She and Sky climbed into the back seat, and Meg introduced Sky to Jen and Drew.

  Jen and Drew turned around to greet Sky. “Awesome to meet you, Sky,” Drew said, extending his hand. “I’m a big fan of your music.”

  “Thanks.” Sky gave him a hearty handshake. “It’s great to meet both of you. I used to watch you on the SNN morning show, until you took over the reins at the network, so I’m a fan of yours, too, Drew.”

  Meg caught Jen’s eye in the rear view mirror. “Thanks for picking us up, Jen, but why are you driving?”

  Jen and Drew exchanged a knowing glance. “I’m not going to have anything to drink, so I thought I’d give Pablo the night off,” she said, referring to her long-time chauffeur.

  The wheels turned in Meg’s head. “And you didn’t join Aunt Grace, Gina and me in a glass of champagne earlier today. Are you pregnant again?”

  “We’re going to ‘officially’ announce it tonight at dinner,” Drew said with a grin. “Now that number three is on the way, we’re going to be outnumbered.”

  “Wow!” Meg clapped her hands and grinned ear to ear. “I had no idea you were planning on another one.”

  “Actually, we weren’t. But it’s all good,” Drew said. “The more the merrier. If we manage to have a few more, then we’ll have our own basketball team.”

  The two couples chatted on the short drive to Bridgehampton, where they found parking at the corner of Main Street and Ocean Road, just outside Almond’s front door. “Rock star parking,” Jen said. “Or maybe I should say country star parking,” she teased, giving Sky a quick hug after they exited her SUV. “It’s really good to meet you, Sky,” she said. Gesturing towards Meg, who was walking with Drew a few steps ahead of them, she dropped her voice, and added, “I like you already. You’ve made her smile again.”

  “That’s all I want to do. She’s done the same for me.”